When he came back, the sailor’s face had regained much of his color, and he was breathing normally. He was cleaning his dagger and had rearranged the bundle of his belongings. This man took great care of his souvenirs. Then, the sailor put a finger to his lips for silence. He gestured to Mérdmerén that he should hide behind the thick trunk of a tree. Mérdmerén did as he was told and watched, though all he could see was foliage.
Something moved. His heart beat faster, and he was aware of the beating in his temple. Ságamas had come to his side, and he had turned pale once again.
Mérdmerén concentrated on the forest. Another movement! He was not prepared to remain there motionless. He started to move in that direction when he heard a croak. He stopped in his tracks and hid again. He saw red scales. A wyvern! Mérdmerén advanced a couple of steps and found a wyvern laying on its belly with its wings extended on the soil like a mantle, its neck rising and falling in despair.
The reptile’s mouth was full of blood with shreds of meat between its teeth. Its forked tongue hissed, and its gaze was remote. Mérdmerén felt sorry for it. He approached it carefully, and the reptile met his gaze. Its gaze was penetrating, and despite the beast’s defenseless situation, it managed to frighten the man.
“What the hell are you doing, Mérdmerén? It’ll kill you!” the sailor cried.
Under the light of the sun, the red scales looked like rubies. Mérdmerén went a little closer. The beast’s wing was pierced by a long arrow, very similar to those of Usuma, the Wild Woman who had saved them from the wyverns’ attack.
“It’s wounded!” shouted Mérdmerén.
“Let it die!” the sailor replied, still behind the tree.
“It can’t do anything to us. Relax. Come on, nothing’s going to happen.” He went even closer to the animal. “Let me see what’s happened to you.” The wyvern tensed. It lifted its head, as big as that of a strong bull. On its trunk, it had minute horns and several scales. It stretched its wings to their fullest, swelled its chest, and was forced to pull back at once. The pain was stronger than its pride. Mérdmerén did not hesitate; he moved forward, seized the arrow, and pulled it out.
“Are you crazy? It could’ve killed you!” yelled the sailor, full of concern. The reptile croaked and spread its wings as if checking that it was free of the arrow. With a leap, it rose in the air and began to fly.
“Today, I’ve helped a wyvern. Tomorrow, someone’ll help us. Life, my dear sailor, is a chain of favors.”
“Did you learn that while you were a bandit?” the sailor asked sarcastically.
“That’s right.”
“You really are crazy, boss. People are right not to mess with you.”
The deserter wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I found a path heading west, to a mountainous region of dense forests. There are signs that people are living nearby.” He did not tell him that those people might have fled.
“I hope you’re right, boss. Bad luck’s on our tail and grabbing at our asses.”
Although the path was irregular as well as complicated, both Mérdmerén and Ságamas felt that their progress along it was easier. They were led on by the hope of reaching a village soon, going into one of its taverns, and ordering hot stew with warm beer. A full stomach and the comfort of a woman in exchange for a few coins would do them good.
“D’you think we’re still being followed?” Ságamas asked.
“Most likely, sailor. But they’re cowards; they don’t dare touch us.”
The vegetation was quite thick, though not so much as to hide any threat from a fair distance. When they reached the top of the mountain, they saw a sentry box, open like a gutted animal. Mérdmerén and Ságamas smiled, and without feeling any need for words, they made their way toward it. But when they were only a few paces away, they were suddenly gripped by an inexplicable fear.
“D’you feel that?” Mérdmerén whispered, drawing his rusty sword from his belt. Everything was silent around them as if the sound had fled from there. The sailor had turned pale once again. He was grasping his dagger, scanning the trees, the bushes, the shadows. Mérdmerén focused on the branches of a tree. Ságamas followed his gaze and saw something swaying. The two men stood there, frozen to the spot, and unable to utter a word.
At least fifty children, a hundred adults, and a couple of older people were hanging there by their necks. The smell of death clung to the travelers’ bodies.
“Follow me,” whispered Mérdmerén. “We need to find out what’s happened here.”
“Remember what Usuma said? Something about evil? Dead walkers?”
“I remember, and also that I didn’t want to believe it.” Mérdmerén remembered Balthazar’s words. He had not believed them either. You were right, Innonimatus, he thought. Evil had awakened and arrived in the empire. For the moment, he felt he would rather stay silent; his partner was not at his best at that moment. When they passed the sentry box, they noticed there were no signs of violence or fighting. It was strange. The village was desolate and many of the houses were boarded up.
“What the hell has happened here?” Mérdmerén wondered aloud, his heart frozen. The evening sun was going down, and soon, it would be dark.
“I don’t want to find out. We’d better go,” Ságamas said, shaking with his eyes searching around nervously. Mérdmerén took his arm and encouraged him on. They turned a corner and came upon an immense pile of corpses.
“So, what is this?” muttered the sailor uneasily.
“Hell.”
The piled-up corpses were impaled, dismembered, decapitated. Mérdmerén sensed a threat and raised his sword.
“Let’s get out of here! Now!” the deserter yelled. “There’s nothing but misfortune here—by the Gods!”
“Let’s go! Now!” Ságamas agreed.
But they had taken too long about it. A hooded being dressed in black emerged from nothing, surrounded by a wake of swaying shadows which hissed plaintively like helpless souls. They could only see its hands, which were no more than white skin and bone. The figure in the hood was murmuring something unintelligible as it levitated.
“Stop right there! Don’t come a step closer, or you’ll have me to deal with!” Mérdmerén shouted in warning.
Two corpses began to move. First, the legs twitched, then the arms, then the heads. Their eyes lit up in red, and they uttered guttural laments. They slithered along the ground until they managed to get to their feet and then began to walk clumsily with their mouths open and hungry. They were the macabre puppets of a soulless being.
“All we’re going to find here is perdition. Out we go!”
A long, heavy arrow pierced the head of one of the corpses that fell at once like a sack of potatoes. Another arrow pierced the second corpse through the temples. Two more hit the chest of the hooded figure, which gave a deep, deafening howl and, in a second, had vanished, taking with it its wake of shadows.
Chapter XI – Ultimatum
Mérdmerén had never felt so relieved to see someone again, especially in the case of such a beautiful woman. Usuma looked as though she had witnessed similar horrors or perhaps even worse. The Wild Woman had a superficial cut on her breast, and her ax was bloodied.
“Covered man bad. Bring dead…” Usuma collapsed. She had covered her face and was crying. A couple of tears slid through her fingers and ended up on that accursed land. The mastiffs went up to her lovingly.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” said Mérdmerén, trying to comfort her, but even he did not believe his own words. He did not understand what he had seen, but he felt it was something complex and that all he had seen was only a small sample of an unfathomable hell.
“We must get out of here. This is madness. There’s only suffering and pain here.”
“At sea,” the sailor began, a little more calmly, “when you catch too many fish and can’t sell them, the dead ones pile up, and you have to burn them because otherwise, they turn into a source of infection and illness and t
he cause of more deaths.”
“What are you saying?”
“That we need to burn the bodies. Besides, if that son of a bitch can revive the dead, how are we going to avoid falling into his hands? But if we burn those bodies, we take away his puppets from that demon. And in addition to that, we prevent the plague.”
The dogs were whimpering, sharing the sorrow of their mistress, the Wild Woman who had saved their lives.
“I must go. I not from Mandrake. Wild Woman no welcome. Mother waits. Mother, there,” she said, pointing to the mountains. “Usuma, not well. Much evil here. I not understand. Not understand.”
The woman turned and ran until she had disappeared among the trees and bushes. Her thighs, bloodied and attractive, were the last things to impress themselves on Mérdmerén’s mind.
“Let’s burn this hecatomb,” he said. There was a strange expression on his face.
“It won’t be difficult,” Ságamas replied. “All those putrefying gases will help the pile of corpses burn more rapidly.”
“What the hell happened?” Mérdmerén asked.
“The Gods will know. The demon we saw had the hands of a man, but only skin and bone. And those shadows dancing around it… Necromancer, you said? I—it is horrendous. I think I made a mistake in joining you.”
The boss did not answer.
The sailor went up to the mountain of bodies without hesitation. It came to Mérdmerén’s mind that perhaps the old man was imagining himself navigating the seas toward a colossal wave.
***
That night, they did not sleep well. They had continued on their way as fast as they could, following the course of the river that flowed north, a tributary of the Márgades. They ate and drank all the fruits they found; they had neither the time nor the concentration for hunting animals. At the same time, they carried a great sorrow with them ever since leaving the devastated village and could not get rid of the feeling that they were being stalked by a demon which, for the moment, remained invisible.
Sometimes, they seemed to hear the sound of footsteps and looked back, but all they found was the dense leafiness of nature. They spoke little, and around six in the evening, when they came to a flat area, they decided to stop. The sailor seemed to die every time he tried to walk faster, but fear seemed to have swelled his courage.
When the darkness was complete, Mérdmerén became nervous in a way he had very rarely done before. Not being able to keep watch over their surroundings was torture. The trees seemed to come alive and topple over them, and the winds howled funereal notes among the branches. He held his sword tight, even though he knew that with that length of iron there was little he could do in the face of that hooded demon.
The sailor could not find peace either. He woke up every five minutes with the feeling that a heavy shadow was sitting on top of him. At sea, he had known different horrors but nothing about the lines of corpses coming back to life. Mérdmerén was about to tell Ságamas what Balthazar had warned him about. But the night seemed to have ears ready and waiting, and the last thing he wanted was to attract more demons. He would wait for the coming of daylight.
***
The following day, the sun enveloped them sweetly. With its long fingers, it caressed the travelers’ senses and relaxed their black thoughts. They rose at once. Above the tops of the trees, both of them were witnesses to a marvelous spectacle.
Like a sweet peach of joy, the sun rose among the clouds that were spread out like canoes along the sky, tinged with pale pink, orange, or the blue of blueberries. The travelers closed their eyes, allowing the warm morning to caress them and clear their minds and souls. For an instant, it seemed to them that glory and peace were as possible as the movement of the wind through the leaves of a cedar. Despite their lack of sleep, Mérdmerén and Ságamas regained their strength in both body and heart. On the horizon—green, fertile, and marked with wonderful hidden paths—they could trace the profile of the high mountains. Mérdmerén breathed deeply. He was ready to go on fighting, to continue on his way and accomplish his mission.
“Now two different groups are chasing us, Mérdmerén.”
“I know, sailor. I hope one of them gives up.”
The sailor’s gaze darkened. “D’you remember that story about a village called San San-Tera? The one that was completely wiped out, and nobody ever knew who was responsible?”
“Of course I remember. We talked about it the other day. That was where Eromes came from, one of the best farmers in the Empire.”
“Could it have some connection with what we’ve seen?”
“I don’t know, sailor. If it is, we have to stop this threat from destroying the whole Empire. I have to tell you something about our little mission…” Mérdmerén bent his head.
“Shit, boss! You’re going to tell me you had something to do with that? You’ll be the death of me, Deserter. I told you I don’t want to die on land.”
“A very important messenger warned me that the shadows have awakened, and an ancient and powerful enemy has grown stronger and is endangering the Empire. After seeing that, I’ve no doubt his words fell short of the truth. You say you don’t know much about our empire; now you’re going to hear what little I know of our history.”
Mérdmerén told him what he knew about the Times of Köel, after the destruction of Flamonia during the War of One Lament.
“And what’s your role now?”
“I have to inform the king,” he said. That was one part of the truth. The other was that he wanted to take revenge on his enemies, and, why not; perhaps there would be that vacancy Balthazar had spoken of when the kingdom had to put itself together once again. He had the feeling that he was on the right track, and he was not going to stray from it.
“Now, more than ever, we need to take the news to Háztatlon and alert King Aheron III. I only hope the council will want to listen to me,” he muttered.
“Why you?” asked the sailor.
“Because I was part of the council, and perhaps the king will listen to me,” said Mérdmerén. He wasn’t sure if that was the truth, but it rang true in his mind. Why else would he be the right man for the mission?
“Right then, let’s go. We’ll reach a village soon, hopefully, today. We need horses—by the Gods—decent food, and the warmth of a woman.”
“I like the plan. Let’s go!”
The travelers gathered their things together, hid the ashes and their footprints, and made others to confuse their pursuers. Deep down, they knew the enemy was too intelligent to be fooled by a false trail.
***
The day turned out sunnier and more pleasant than expected. The sun, shining brightly in a clear sky, was pitilessly hot on the backs of the travelers who had to stop and freshen up in the waters of the river. Along the way, they laughed, told jokes, and exchanged experiences, although they did not forget the hell they had witnessed.
Mérdmerén was thinking about what he would do when they reached Háztatlon. He dreamed about seeing his wife again and having her in his arms or bidding his daughter goodnight. He could not help remembering his life as a counselor. He regretted having been so greedy. My sins are well and truly paid. It’s time for revenge and others to pay for theirs, he thought as he avoided puddles and jumped over rocks, enjoying the day.
Ságamas was lost in his thoughts. The sweet, cold, shallow water of the river brought the memory of the sea and his ship riding the waves to his mind. It saddened him that he would never be able to sail again. At four in the afternoon, tired but in good spirits, they saw a large village. The smoke from the chimneys told them it was inhabited. They hesitated for a moment. What were they going to find there? The only way to find out was by going in.
The first thing that surprised them was the absence of streets and buildings. In their place were trees, abundant green, and a couple of towers of pale stone. They had built the town in the forest, respecting nature.
The entrance was protected by two great silk-cotton trees an
d a metal bar in the middle. Beside each of these trees, there rose a stone wall at least two strides high with lookouts every few meters, each one guarded by two soldiers armed to the teeth. When they reached the entrance, two mounted guards came out on golden coursers with white spots on their muzzles.
The animals were very beautiful; it was obvious that they were very well looked after. The soldiers were well protected with thick leather and a coat of chainmail from the neck to below the waist. They carried long threatening spears and at their belts, one short sword and another long one.
“Halt!” the guards ordered.
“Where are we?” Mérdmerén asked.
“These are the lands of Don Trágalar Maximus, the estates of Licaf and Atisbar, known in the Empire for their export of coffee and horses. They’re the property of the Maximus, and nobody may enter unless they obtain a permit from the lord of these lands.”
Mérdmerén peered inside the wall. There were stone towers everywhere and a castle in the center. From outside, the murmur of its inhabitants could be heard; it sounded like a market day. Now that he remembered, those estates rang a bell, although he had never imagined they would be so prosperous.
“We’re two travelers in need of food, shelter, and transport. We were assaulted by bandits, and they took everything except our lives. I’m sure Don Trágalar will be kind to two men who only ask for a few days’ rest.”
The soldiers exchanged glances in consultation.
“Follow me,” one of them said. He dismounted and led them inside.
Immediately, they came across people. They were all armed at the least with a dagger, even children and older people. The vegetation ran rampant between the buildings, green and lush. Each tower must have housed several families. The estate excelled in size and beauty like those of the QuepeK’Baj complex in its times of glory, before the disaster that had devastated everything.
Two ladies with black hair and almond-shaped eyes passed near the travelers, who went weak at the knees under those gazes from between half-closed eyelids. They were all similar in their hair, the shape of their faces, their short snub noses, full lips, and slim figures. With the men, it was the same. They seemed to be a single, large family. The travelers arrived at a tower which looked ancient, judging by the moss and the state of the stone. There was only one small window that was protected by thick metal bars. The soldier opened the door and invited them in.
Shepherd’s Awakening (Books 1-3) Page 41